“Oh my god,” Tom grumbled and fought the urge to fall to his knees and sob along with Cassie. “It’s you.”
“Yes, dear. And in a moment you’ll be seeing a much younger version of yourself. But first we need to go in there.”
“In my house?”
“No, Tommy. Not yet, at least. In mine.”
She squeezed his hand and led him up the stairs of the three-decker. A minute later they were standing in Cassie’s bedroom. Every little detail was just the way Tom remembered it, and had described in his writings of that day. The posters. The closet full of gorgeous clothing and shoes, including the black dress that she was wearing now right next to him. And of course the candle on her bedside table, though it was not yet lit.
Then Red Eyes came into focus. Before him, the younger Cassie was on her knees sobbing hysterically. And pinned to her bedroom wall by some unseen force was Brent.
“Don’t worry, Tommy. This is just a replaying of events. He can’t see us. Though, he knows we’re here.”
“This is all too much,” Tom said.
“I know, hun,” Cassie answered him. “Believe me, I know.” She reached over, touching his head gently and briefly allowing a smile to shine through the tears. The feel of her icy cold finger tips chilled him over completely. “Just watch and listen.”
The Cassie that held Tom’s hand began sobbing again, harder and more intensely, as the young Cassie began to speak.
“I agree!” she bellowed at Red Eyes. “Just do it. I agree.”
The black shadowy form with the glowing orbs for eyes grunted his laughter.
“Then it is done,” he growled.
Brent, who had been silent and powerless while pinned to the wall, let out one last scream before Red Eyes motioned in his direction, and with a simple wave of his hand collapsed the side of Brent’s skull. The man Tom had always wanted to see dead then fell into a lifeless pile of broken limbs on the floor.
“So this was how he died” Tom stated more than asked, sounding satisfied.
“That’s right,” Cassie told him.
“He deserved it, Cassie,” Tom said. “You shouldn’t have guilt about this!”
Cassie had to laugh at that last comment.
“That’s not what my guilt is over, Tommy.”
“Then what?”
“Shhh,” she hissed and pointed to Red Eyes. “You’re about to see.”
The black shadowy shape of Red Eyes began to grow, swelling with pride and power. The room grew darker as his presence expanded.
“Now Cassandra,” he said. “You owe me something. Go now.”
The young Cassie rose from her knees looking tortured.
“Just let me light this candle,” she asked of Red Eyes.
Without waiting for an answer, she reached into her pocket and fished out a lighter. But something else came with it, Tom noticed. A folded piece of paper. Cassie squeezed his hand, acknowledging that, yes, it was the very same note with the burnt edge he had in his pocket right now.
“Don’t hesitate, Cassandra, or I take it all back,” Red Eyes boomed. “You want that brute to come back to life? I’ll do it and I’ll make sure you’re never rid of him. Not that it matters now. Your fate belongs to me either way, dear.”
“Okay!” she screamed.
“You know what you owe me,” Red Eyes said coldly.
“I know. I’m going.”
Cassie held Tom’s hand tighter and let out more pathetic sobs as they watched her younger self exit the bedroom.
“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” Tom groaned.
They stood in silence for a few moments after Cassie’s exit and saw Red Eyes vanish from the room too, Brent vanishing with him. Then Tom saw his snow-covered ten-year-old self enter the room, skulking and fearful of being caught. He wished he could tell the kid to relax, for he would not be caught. He was in for a far bigger surprise when he would get back home, though.
“We can’t stay here,” Cassie said, barely able to speak through her sobbing.
She squeezed his hand, and the black tunnel came again, as if on cue. They stepped into it and a moment later they were standing in the very den of Tom’s every nightmare. They were now next door at Tom’s old house, standing in the living room where Ronald Sullivan was passed out drunk in his wheelchair and snoring like a buzz saw.
“No!” Tom shouted, trying to pull away from Cassie but unable to free his hand from her grip. “I can’t be here. I can’t.”
“You have to know the whole truth, Tommy,” she said. “If we’re to get out of this...”
Tom could handle reliving the parts of this day that he had seen. Deep inside he even enjoyed seeing Red Eyes lay waste to Brent. But this was far worse.
“I can’t, Cassie. I can’t watch my mother kill my father!”
“You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” Cassie asked.
“Figured what out?”
“What I had to do that day to free myself of Brent! The deal that I made!”
Tom couldn’t possibly be angry at Cassie, but he couldn’t figure out why she was being not only so impatient with him, but so vague too. What could he possibly be missing?
“What do I need to get, Cassie? So you had Red Eyes kill Brent. What does this have to do with my father’s murder?”
“Your mother didn’t kill your father!” Cassie’s words came out hot and angry, her eyes straining from her anguish. “I did! I killed him!”
Silence came over the room. Tom had no words for the truth he had just learned, but it all finally made sense.
“I killed him, Tommy,” she repeated. She wasn’t yelling now, and the natural calm, soothing tone had returned to her voice. “It was part of the deal. Red Eyes takes a life, and you have to give him one in return.”
The scene before them explained the rest as they watched the young Cassie enter the living room with a large knife, one that Tom recognized as being part of his mother’s seldom used cutlery set.
Tom felt some comfort over the fact that his father was so drunk that he didn’t even react to the knife cutting into his throat and slicing him from ear to ear. He hated the man, but he also didn’t want to see him suffer.
“I’m sorry, Tommy,” Cassie said in broken sobs. “I’m so sorry. I saw what he did to you! I heard him scream at you. I heard him beat you. I thought I was helping you. I never knew what would come from this. I never thought your mother would be blamed for it. I know how she died in jail. I wanted to come clean but Red Eyes wouldn’t let me! I’m so sorry─”
“I forgive you,” Tom said, not giving the concept a second thought.
No words followed Tom’s absolution of Cassie. Only tears. Then came the black whirlwind, and they braved the abyss once again.
They were back in the cemetery, by the giant oak tree and the grave of Stephanie Waltman.
Still clutching each other’s hands tightly and sobbing, they grimaced as the form of Red Eyes appeared again in the darkness before them.
“You accepted my deal, Thomas,” said the red-eyed devil himself. “Not willingly or knowingly, but you still accepted. Now you owe me my compensation. I think my price shall be a life. I can’t imagine you’ll have any problem giving me a life. What an empty shell of a man you must be who forgives his father’s murderer without a second thought.”
“What deal?” Tom asked. “We made no deal.”
“You ungrateful shit!” Red Eyes spat. “You went along with this whole thing, you fool. You could have kept on living your life with your poor, ill fortuned Sand and you wouldn’t even be here. But just being here and learning the truths you just learned are equal to your name on the dotted line. So I have named my price. You will do just like your murderous lover girl has done and take a life.”
“This is not fair!” Tom screamed at the Devil. “You didn’t say I had to kill someone, ever.”
Red Eyes laughed a growly guffaw and then spoke.
“You fool. I’m the fu
cking devil. And oh, you don’t just have to kill someone. Seeing as the only killable person here right now is standing next to you, I think you know that your options are rather limited. And what a wonderful deal for me, as she willingly accepted my offer all those years ago. You know how that works. Her soul becomes mine upon death and all that other fine print.”
Cassie clutched Tom’s hand harder. Tom clutched hers back.
“Unless, of course, her life is taken by divine hands,” said a woman’s voice from the darkness.
From behind the grave of Stephanie Waltman came a glow, then appeared the woman in white.
Her magnificent luminescence filled the sky, bringing a synthetic daylight to the dark cemetery.
“Hello, Death,” growled Red Eyes. “Right on time as usual. I hope you aren’t trying to pull anything funny or rob me of a soul.”
Red Eyes seemed to welcome her presence, furthering the anxiety coursing through Tom’s veins at the moment.
“You’re Death,” Tom stated more than asked.
“Yes, Thomas,” said the white-clad girl. “Not the hood and hay sickle you expected. But yes, I’m the grim reaper, all right.”
“You’ve been the one guiding me…why you? Why Death?”
“Death is where all roads lead, Thomas.”
Death and Tom locked eyes for a moment, and a silent exchange of words took place, leaving Tom with a smile that wiped away his fear and apprehension.
“What are you scheming?” Red Eyes demanded, disapproving of their stare.
“No scheming,” Death told him. “None at all.”
“You know I have more power over you than you can possibly imagine. I’d suggest you not try anything funny.”
“I’m only here to do my job,” Death stated with calm serenity in her tone, but a smirk on her face that meant something more.
“Good,” Red Eyes grunted. “Now you know what you must do, Thomas. Go ahead and cut your little dream girl to pieces.”
Red Eyes produced an old, jagged dagger seemingly from thin air and handed it to Tom. As Tom accepted the weapon, Red Eyes was thrown off by his look of willingness and determination, as well as Cassie’s lack of fear.
“Gut her, Thomas,” Red Eyes commanded with an impatient and irritated snarl. “Make her soul mine!”
“You were wrong, Red Eyes,” Tom proclaimed fearlessly. “Cassie isn’t the only killable person here.”
“What do you mean?” asked Red Eyes.
“Next time don’t make a deal with someone who has nothing to lose,” said Tom, and then turned to Cassie. “Thank you, Cassie. For saving me.”
Even the devil himself was silenced as Tom plunged the dagger into his own chest, stabbing himself square in the heart. Blinding light shot out from his eyes and mouth before his lifeless body crashed down onto the grass.
“What!” screamed Red Eyes. “No!”
“I may not be able to overpower you,” Death boasted. “But I can outsmart you. I can’t take all the credit though. It was just as much Cassie’s idea as my own. We discussed a few things on the ride up here. And we both knew Tom would comply. Funny, the lengths a man will go to just to be with the woman he loves forever. In this life or the next.”
Red Eyes said nothing and simply vanished like a coward only a moment later, having been defeated.
Death approached Cassie.
“You’re beautiful in your angelic form too,” Cassie said, genuinely mesmerized by her true appearance as well as her cunning.
“As will you be, my dear,” Death whispered back, reaching a finger up to brush Cassie’s face adoringly, but stopping, as Cassie backed away.
“Not yet, please.”
“Of course,” Death agreed.
“I never believed death was really an angel,” Cassie said, looking deep into the glowing white presence. “A loving, compassionate kind of being.”
“I’ve been in similar predicaments in my living years, dear,” Death said with a gentle laugh. “So…are you ready for the passing of the torch?”
Cassie looked down on Tom. Nothing about the sight of his lifeless body creeped her out. He had died happily. And he had died for the both of them.
“I’m ready,” Cassie said impatiently.
“Let’s do it, then. Sixteen years is long enough for anyone to do this job.”
Death smiled and placed her angelic white hand upon Cassie.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff O’Brien lives in southern New Hampshire with his wife and a passel of dogs. He mostly writes trashy horror-comedy, but branches out into serious shit sometimes.
Send him your love at facebook.com/authorjeffobrien
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